In Media Res the MultiMedia Remix
by SabaceanBabe
Summary: An irresistable force meets an immovable object...


Title: In Media Res (the Multi Media Remix)

Author: SabaceanBabe

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: none that I can think of

Title, Author and URL of original story: In Media Res by senatorsfan_ink

Beta thanks: Big thank yous go to lyssie, nicole_anell, and rebelliousrose - this fic is much better for their attention.

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Kara picked at the food on her plate and tried to ignore the whispers from the table in the corner. Whispers directed at her. She had never felt so alone, and that was saying something. Every day now, walking _Galactica_'s familiar corridors, her skin fairly itched under the weight of her crewmates' stares. They watched her, waited for her to screw up, to reveal to them… whatever it was they thought she was going to reveal. They all believed she was a Cylon, but that was just about the one thing she was sure she wasn't.

The Hybrid had called her the harbinger of death, like it was some kind of title. _Kara Thrace and Her Special Destiny._ Sometimes… Sometimes she smelled the tang of the smoke and the sea, clinging to her hair, suffusing her skin, felt the heat of the flames that burned her own body to cinders, and she wanted to scream out her frustration and fear. The harbinger of whose death? Her own? Been there, done that. Or maybe the death of the human race? The Cylon race? Or how about the death of their hopes and dreams, leaving them to live on as shells of what they once were, just going through the motions. And wasn't that her own worst nightmare?

She took a bite of algae loaf, tasted nothing but bitter ash.

***

When Felix was very small, he wanted to be a fireman, put out fires and ride around in the big trucks and save people from burning buildings. When he was a little older, he wanted to be an architect and create fantastic buildings that people would know from just a quick glance were designed by Felix Gaeta. But when he was a young man and left Virgon behind for Caprica and college, he learned that it wasn't the architecture that truly fascinated him, but the science behind it. He'd soaked up science in all its guises like a desert plant soaked up moisture.

That love of science had led him to join the Colonial Fleet, as much a surprise to him as it had been to his family and friends, but it was with the Fleet that he felt he could best use his skills and his brain. And that, in turn, had led him to the _Galactica_ and to this time and place. Oddly enough, the choices he'd made then and now had led him to the path he currently walked, spurred on by the destruction of his personal hopes and dreams.

Pausing just outside the rec room, he looked down. His trousers hid the hunk of metal and plastic strapped uncomfortably to the stump. Bitterness welled up inside and his grip tightened painfully on the cane in his right hand. What was the death of his dreams in the face of those of the entire human race? The admiral and the president fell further under the spell of their so-called allies every day. The frakking Cylons. The very same "people" who were the reason they were all out here facing a slow death in the first place.

When he was very small, he'd wanted to help people. And now, as an adult, he realized that hadn't changed. Steeling himself, he thought about all the things Tom had said and took that final step through the hatch.

_Gods, I miss you, Dee…_

***

She was aware when Felix Gaeta paused in the hatchway, a patch of dark blue in the corner of her eye. Her gaze didn't stray from the lump of congealed algae on the end of her fork, but she didn't need to look up to know who it was; she smelled him. She didn't know how he did it, but Felix always smelled good, even when they were on the _Demetrius_. They'd been friends once, she and Felix. Once upon a time, she might have been able to talk to him, confide in him, but not now. Gods, not now.

That bastard Leoben was the only one she felt she could talk to about everything that swirled like that damned mandala around and around in her head, but that motherfrakker just cut and ran. Yammering on and on about destiny, visions, standing in the stream. All that utter crap and then he just ran away. In some ways, that betrayal hurt almost more than any of the others in her life, and how frakked up was that? All the words he'd spewed, implying all over the damned place that he knew what was going on, knew who and what she was, but as soon as something happened that he didn't understand he vanished.

Lee would listen, but he had his own worries, his own demons to wrestle, she couldn't burden him with hers. She could maybe talk to Helo about some of it, but he was all wrapped up in his kid and his Cylon wife. Cylon wife. Cylon husband. She slumped even further in her chair, rested her forehead on her hand.

_Oh, gods, Sam…_

***

The rec room was crowded with off-duty personnel, most of whom Felix suspected would listen to what he said with sympathy if not necessarily support, but in the midst of them all sat Kara Thrace. _Of all the people who could be in here now, why does one of them have to be Starbuck?_ He had to get her out of here. He didn't know what he was going to say to her as a he limped over to her. She was preoccupied, didn't look up from her plate even when he pulled back a chair with a loud scrape and sat down at her table. He waited but still nothing.

"Captain Thrace…"


End file.
